Two Texas friends died less than three months apart after taking pills they thought were safe — one labeled as Xanax, the other as Percocet. Both were laced with nitazenes, a dangerous new synthetic opioid that can be up to 43 times stronger than fentanyl.
According to The New York Post, Lucci Reyes-McCallister, 22, died after taking what he believed was Xanax. Less than half a year later, his friend Hunter Clement, 21, overdosed on a nitazene-laced pill branded to look like a Percocet.
Emily’s Hope has previously reported on nitazenes — an emerging class of synthetic opioids in the United States that, in some cases, are more potent than fentanyl. Earlier this year, Scotland’s Public Health Department issued an alert after a spike in deadly and near-deadly drug overdoses believed to be tied to nitazenes.
“This means even a small amount poses an increased risk of overdose or death. There are ways to reduce the risk of overdose when taking drugs, but there is no safe way to take nitazenes,” said Dr. Tara Shivaji, a consultant in Public Health Medicine at PHS.
Researchers have noted a concerning trend: patients who overdose on nitazenes require more doses of the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone than those who overdosed on fentanyl. The study published in JAMA Network Open also found that nitazenes had higher rates of cardiac arrest and death than overdoses involving other substances.
While the Drug Enforcement Administration says nitazenes aren’t yet as common as fentanyl, they’re appearing more frequently in headlines. Just weeks ago, three South Florida residents were sentenced to federal prison for distributing methamphetamine, fentanyl, and nitazenes. Prosecutors say the men — Josue David Balaguer, 35, Marcos Geovanny Beltre Olivo, 39, and Joel Medina, 36 — shipped counterfeit pills nationwide, many marketed as pharmaceuticals but laced with deadly drugs. In September 2024, agents executed a residential search warrant and recovered hundreds of thousands of pressed pills, a pill press, a packaging machine, and numerous mailing supplies.
The DEA’s National Drug Threat Assessment warns that nitazenes can match or surpass the potency of fentanyl. When combined with fentanyl, the effects of both drugs are heightened, which significantly increases the chance of death. The synthetic opioids have been showing up in the U.S. since 2019.
Now the mothers of Lucci and Hunter are warning parents about the growing danger.
“They could think something is clean or rather safe when it’s actually pressed for something that’s 20 to 40 times stronger, more deadly than fentanyl,” Lucci’s mother, Grey McCallister, told The Post. “It just really lit a fire under me. There was no way Lucci was going to die in vain.”
